look at that dickhead in sydney who didn't get the joke

bonus page: various pieces of taping ephemera i've kept over the years

As I mentioned on the previous page, I didn't want to end this thing on a bum note. So instead, here are various bits and pieces of taping ephemera that I've kept over the years.

When I first started going to tapings at the ABC, they'd give us one of these tickets to hold onto while we'd wait in the foyer before we'd file into Studio 22 and give these up again as we'd go past the bag check.

Sometimes they'd be blue instead of yellow. From memory they might've been for the VIPs - if the studio was overbooked and people couldn't fit in, or if something else happened that meant that people had to be rescheduled to another recording session, they'd make these people VIPs to say sorry for the inconvenience.

Or maybe I'm just thinking about the weird Gruen tickets that were blue and had the actual Gruen logo on them.

Anyway. I've no idea which show this would've been from, or how I mangaged to keep it with me when going past security. I have a feeling it might have been an early Gruen Transfer recording?

The one time I went to a War On Everything recording was on June 12 2007. Myself and a friend from school were VIPs for this recording; they had overbooked the previous week's recording and made us VIPs for this one instead.

Which was smack bang in the middle of that East Coast Low that made the Pasha Bulker run aground at Nobbys Beach.

This was the episode in series 2 (I don't remember the episode number, sorry) that began with torrential rain falling on set as the opening monologue was delivered. Poor Craig Reucassel was already unwell during this recording, and he was in absolute misery when this bit was filmed at the end of the recording.

Between the rest of the show and the set-up for the rainy monologue, someone in the crew got wind that Today Tonight were waiting out the front, hoping to get people in the audience to say things about the show that they'd then take out of context for their next Chaser hit piece. The cast were extremely keen for some people to go out and stitch Today Tonight up. Some people did manange to get out before ABC Security threatened to lock us out if more people went. :(

At the end, some of the cast did come out for a brief meet and greet with those who stayed back. My friend really wanted to meet Craig, but he understandbly didn't come out to mingle. I don't remember who else came out, but Andrew Hansen was definitely the most social that evening. He was very kind and patient to us seventeen year old freaks, even as we were frantically tearing one of our school notebooks up to get something ready for him to sign.

The fact that he signed with two hearts made my friend group think that Andrew was actually a Time Lord. Make of that what you will.

This is my hastiliy scribbled "Save The Sideshow!" sign I made before I went to the recording of the final episode.

All I'll say is that I was extremely close to joining the Friends Of The ABC when I was eighteen ("Axing both The Glass House and The Sideshow in the space of a year?! HOW DARE.") and no, I've no idea what "Save The Sideshow, Save The World" means.

Wasn't that from Heroes or something? idk, I never watched that show.

This isn't really taping ephemera, as such. But for some reason, I've felt it was appropriate to keep this hand-written congratulatory note that came with The Gruen Transfer Series 1 DVD I somehow won... on MySpace?

I've not a clue what the competition entailed. Did I have to be in Todd Sampson's Top 8 or something? Who knows!

I don't think I even kept the DVD, by the way. If I remember correctly, I think I ended up giving it to a friend because I already had a copy

Again, not taping ephemera as such. This one comes from the time the friend I gave my Gruen Transfer DVD to and I decided to live out out our wildest dreams... by attending the big Better Homes And Gardens Live Spectacular (!) at Sydney Olympic Park.

I KNOW, right? We would often have long telephone conversations about what rubbish Tara Dennis would make on the most recent episode, including one particularly memorable instance of her making a shower curtain out of old soft drink bottles.

I say "particularly memorable" because I have not found a single shred of evidence that this actually happened in the years since, and I"m half-convinced that I actually dreamt it.

But yes, we loved watching Tara and her creations, so you better believe that we were super pumped to go to Olympic Park and sit through whatever we had to sit through just to see her.

The rest of the "Spectacular" was little more than glorified product placement, and I don't remember seeing anyone else in the Better Homes cast. But we did get to meet Tara, and she was actually really really lovely and we both kinda felt bad for making fun of her arts and crafts.

This signature is in an autograph book that my parents gave me, probably for my birthday. It has two signatures. One from my parents, the other from Tara.

I forgot I even had it until I found it the other day when I was looking through my drawers to find stuff for this page.

Back to actual taping ephemera now, and this is a ticket that we'd get as we lined up outside the gates across the showground at Fox Studios for Good News Week, and later Good News World in 2011.

I used to have many more of these. I used to keep them at the back of my phone, between the case and the actual handset. I ended up throwing them and some of the "flitter" they'd release through the cannons after Paul's opening monologues out one day. I thought I got rid of them all, but this turned up one day at the bottom of a drawer.

I don't have the heart to throw this one out.

The really sad thing about this is, I really don't remember much about this particular recording at all. Like, the only thing I remember was crying on the phone to the rest of the Regs before the show because I was hopelessly lost in the Sydney CBD with no idea of where to park and I was convinced I was going to be late and be locked out of the show.

For the record, I did find a park (god knows where) and I did make it in time (only just.) Maybe I was still running on too much adrenaline to remember the rest of it. :(

There were numerous taping in-jokes during the end of Good News Week and Good News World that always made me chuckle, so I thought what better way to give myself a cheeky reminder of them... by buying overpriced charms for a bracelet that would never fail to annoy me should I actually wear the thing?

And no, I didn't get very far with it, clearly. There's also really no point in trying to explain them here. It's all very "you had to be there." Except I will say that the title of this entire project is a reference to the thing that is referenced by the Opera House charm.

This is the wildcard I won as part of that Facebook quiz I played when I absolutely should not have been playing it before I ultimately sung "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" off-key in front of a packed Horden Pavillion crowd as part of the 2012 RocKwiz "Some Kind Of Genuis" tour.

God, that was a wild turn of events.

Another thing I found the other day when I was looking for things to include in this page. I don't recall exactly how many episodes of Can Of Worms (the Chrissie Swan era) I went to - maybe two or three - nor do I remember much about the recordings.

I remember more about the pilot I went to, which turned out to be part of the audition process to find the successor to Ian "Dicko" Dickson. It remains the only time so far I've been to a recording at ABC Ultimo's Studio 21, and it was probably the most bare-bones production I've seen.

The two potential hosts that night were Charlie Pickering and Gretel Killeen.

And, look. Chrissie was fine as the host, but I was disappointed that Gretel didn't get the gig.

You've seen these before, but here they are again - the Nanoblock Andrew Rochford and Mark Humphries I made to distract myself from actually submitting the application to become a Pointless contestant, posing with Shaz's Secrets Of Bowral ring I won at the final recording which I fondly refer to as my Pointless Trophy.

I mean, I never wear it in actual public, I might as well keep it on display as a trophy?

These are the two drawings I snuck into the studio and planned to leave behind at the same final recording but I both lost my nerve and had a moment of clarity when I said to myself, "that is a completely insane thing to do, you idiot."

They are both made with Copic marker on bleedproof paper, "Legs Made Of Desk..." was done in October 2018 while "The Doctor Is In" was done in January 2019. The latter of which caught the attention of Mark on Twitter, who tagged Andrew and said that "it should be the new set".

And yes, these are both of Andrew. At that point in time, I was not good at drawing Mark at all. That's why "The Doctor Is In" is an odd shape; I tried to include Mark in it, but it just was not working at all, so I had to cut him out.

And finally, this is my consolation prize for my time on Mastermind Australia. It might not seem like much, but you know what? I had such a fun day and Marc and the crew were just so goddamn nice and accomodating to everyone and I got to hang out with a bunch of like-minded nerds for a day, why would I need anything else?

Apart from not losing by a pass and moving onto the semi-finals, maybe. But still. I started, and I finished, and I have this card to remind me of that life milstone.

And indeed with that, I've started this bullshit taping recollection and associated songs project, and now I have finally finished.

If you've read all this, thank you. Thank you so, so much. I really appreciate it. xx

-- Tanaya

29 September 2025